Prop. 47 and Realignment Are Epic Failures

HOT OFF THE PRESSES

A friend shared the following recent essay from the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs blog.  It will come as no surprise to those of us in Costa Mesa, where crime was up 33% through the end of 2015, HERE.  The January, 2016 numbers are better, HERE, but Burglaries and Stolen Vehicles are still off the charts. Realignment and Prop. 47 are epic failures and we, the public, are the ones who will suffer for that failure.

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS IN COSTA MESA

In Costa Mesa the issue is exacerbated (not "exasperated", Steve) by the proliferation of sober living facilities in our city.  It is estimated at more than 28% of all Orange County sober living homes are in Costa Mesa.  Those "clients" who run out of insurance money or cash, or otherwise fail to complete their course of rehabilitation, are summarily dumped out onto our streets, where their options are grim.  In many cases it means homelessness and/or a life of crime to feed whatever their habit is.

STILL UNDERSTAFFED
The Costa Mesa Police Department remains significantly understaffed - as I write this there are 25 open positions - even though the Human Resourcs staff and the CMPD are pushing forward with recruitment efforts with all prudent haste.  We've been able to hire many of the best of the best from academy classes.

TOXIC ENVIRONMENT
Over the past four years we've lost nearly half the staff due to retirements - early and regular - and departures to other jurisdictions due to the toxic environment created by the elected leadership majority.  You cannot expect the same level of performance by the new officers filling those holes in the organization that you got from those old hands who left.  Police work takes experience to develop proficiency.  And, because of the tension caused by the bogus lawsuit filed against the men and women of the CMPD by the Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem - combined with an unwillingness of the city to negotiate a new labor contract - it was nearly impossible to attract lateral transfers from other jurisdictions.  We're told there is a new labor contract pending - after nearly two years without one - and the lawsuit continues to linger.

OPPORTUNITIES LOST
Specialty units were decimated and positions in them were not filled, creating a disincentive to officers hoping to make a career with the CMPD.  Many of the forward-thinking steps taken by previous chiefs - Roger Neth, Dave Snowden, and Tom Gazsi - have been chopped.  Steve Staveley tried to hold things together as Interim Chief (twice)The current city administration was non-responsive to the needs for a couple years.  In the spring of 2014 CEO Tom Hatch received from then-chief Gazsi his plan for the resurrection of the Costa Mesa Police Department.  That plan was never acknowledged, much less acted upon.  The elected leadership refused to permit Gazsi and his team recruit to fill existing and anticipated vacancies for more than eight (8) months!  That put them far behind the recruitment curve, where they remain today.

READ THE ESSAY
So, this essay below is just one more exclamation point on the issues facing law enforcement throughout the state, and Costa Mesa particularly.  You won't enjoy it, but you should read it.  Some sycophants of the current elected "leaders" in town will say, "Well, look who wrote it!  Those darn union thugs!", or words to that effect.  Well, ignore the authors if you must, even though they are the men and women who have to deal with these failed ideas every day, but read the facts.

FBI Statistics Show  "The Experiment" Has Failed By ALADS Board of Directors When Realignment was introduced, it was described as one of the "great experiments in American incarceration policy."   Unfortunately, the guinea pigs in this experiment were not the inmates released from the state prisons, but the residents of California who lives and property were purposely put at risk.  That change was followed in short order by Proposition 47, which not only led to the release of prison inmates but reduced former felony drug and theft crimes to misdemeanors.  While law enforcement warned crime rates would increase if Proposition 47 passed, voters fell for an initiative duplicitously labeled "The Safe Neighborhood and Schools Act." After the passage of Proposition 47, our deputies and law enforcement across the state saw an increase in crime.  Law enforcement leaders who attempted to inform the public of increase in crime due to Proposition 47 were shouted down.  For example, when Sheriff Jim McDonnell was interviewed by the LA Times in a series of videos entitled "Thanks to Prop. 47, Californians are less safe than they were a year ago," some people claimed the Sheriff was "spreading disinformation" and such claims were "rhetoric" that was not supported by "data." Well, now we have the "data" the some claimed was missing-and it proves the point Sheriff McDonnell had been making.  As detailed in a release from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, FBI statistics released last month documenting nationwide reported crime rates for cities with populations over 100,000 for January-June, 2015 showed California suffered a drastic increase in crime rates in both the violent and property categories. In the violent crime category, California had 3 cities in the top 5, and 5 of the top 10, for increases in violent crime rates. The grim news didn't stop with the "top 10." 49 of 66 California cities in the report had increases in violent crime rates; 34 of those cities saw the violent crime rate increase by double digits. It was even worse in the property crime category.  California took the first 3 spots for increases in property crime rates, and 5 of the first 10.  48 of the 66 California cities saw an increase in their property crime rates, with 24 seeing the rate rise by double digits.  In a blog by the Public Policy Institute of California, the authors noted the property crime rate increase was "widespread and not trivial in magnitude." Of particular note, wrote the PPIC, was that that large cities in the next four largest states (Florida, Texas, New York and Illinois) saw decreases in property crime. Another misleading claim about Proposition 47 and Realignment was that there would be a cost savings as a result of those laws.  In truth, the cost of crime was merely shifted from the state to crime victims and local jurisdictions.  Thus, while a report proudly touted a savings to the State of California of $128 million, it did not set a dollar amount due to this burden shifting-which is enormous.  For example, in Los Angeles County, (we examined cities in LA County that were in the FBI report) and calculated the "cost of crime" using widely accepted Rand Corporation cost method first introduced by New York City Police Commissioner and former LAPD Chief William Bratton. The result- a cost of crime of over $249 million for just six months of 2015 (and only including cities with a population in excess of 100,000.) The sobering numbers above vividly prove that we cannot afford, both in the fiscal and public safety sense, yet another "experiment" with public safety.  We will continue to educate the public on the true cost of the crime experiments now underway, as an educated public is the surest way to defeat new proposals that would cut the amount of time felons serve in prison The Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs (ALADS) is the collective bargaining agent and represents more than 8,200 deputy sheriffs and district attorney investigators working in Los Angeles County. To contact the directors, click here. # # #